If conservatives really want to cut some major waste, fraud and abuse, then this would be a perfect place to start and with a lot of other DoD programs to go with it, many that are essentially little more than, or have been irrevocably corrupted by becoming, federal employment programs. DoD contractors, the infamous military/industrial complex, have become masters in playing and milking the system.

The F35 program, while certainly having some merit and justification in the abstract, in reality, it has become a living caricature of a bloated weapons program that does everything, money to contractors mostly, but actual work well. That a fully capable figher can't be delivered for the princely sum of $1.5 trillion and counting, yes, with a "T" fer chrisakes, then it ought to be cancelled now and the contractors who so badly bungled this program barred from competing for its replacement.

If conservatives only addressed DoD programs with the same level of flinty miserliness that they do domestic and social programs, rather than fawning obsequiousness, then perhaps I would have greater respect for their putative budget-cutting rhetoric. If the DoD can't deliver adequate national security with a budget greater than the next 10-15 biggest militaries COMBINED, then perhaps this should be target #1 for conservative scrutiny and budget cutting.